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Fisker Lays Off Most Workers, Plans To Shop Around Remaining Assets
After being saddled with a half-billion dollars in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy, electric car manufacturer Fisker just can't catch a break. It's not just the cars; it's the company itself. From a Reuters report: "In a statement, Fisker confirmed that it let go about 75 percent of its workforce. The automaker said it was 'a necessary strategic step in our efforts to maximize the value of Fisker's core assets.' A Fisker representative could not immediately answer questions on the company's financial position. In the past, the automaker has declined to comment on the possibility of bankruptcy. ... About 160 employees were terminated at a Friday morning meeting at Fisker's Anaheim, California, headquarters, according to a second source who attended the meeting. They were told that the company could not afford to give them severance payments."
Well, either treat it like NASA if it's so damned important and plow uncounted tens of billions into it, or get out. Trying to be like venture capitalists, but idiot ones, unlike the real ones who won't go near this unlikely technology, just breeds people who will dance the way government wants to attach themselves to the government tit until it runs dry.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
A loan guarantee is not the same as a loan. Fisker was "saddled" with over half a billion in loan guarantees but not with actual loans. You know, dollars? The government froze their credit line under 200 million. Saying Fisker is "saddled" with every dollar from a loan guarantee is like saying I'm "saddled" with every dollar of my $30,000 credit card credit line even though I owe $0. Does that make sense at all to anyone?
And this company failed due to the current trend in American economics. Mr. Fisker wanted to invest and build to create a product to sell. The board wanted to do nothing in an effort to save cash. So Fisker left and the board said, "great! now fire everyone, don't produce anything, and will save loads of cash! Surely success will come!" For the exact opposite line of thinking, see Elon Musk who innovated, invested, and built a product that people would want. But the captains of industry, who we are told deserve the most reward because they take the most risk, don't take shit for risks. They want to sit back and squeeze dollars out of what they have instead of actually producing more. So we have Hostess, that didn't want to compete but just rely on brand-name recognition, and the RIAA/MPAA that wants to copyright everything to infinity so no one has to produce anything of value ever again. Thanks, guys!
Another company borrowed huge sums of money from the Department of Energy only to declare bankruptcy a few years later. Sure, it's not a big piece of the pie as far as the US budget goes. But the US government isn't making a few bad decisions. But many thousands of them.
I note there isn't any submitter here. Is Timmeyah pulling a solo run?
Which is a sexy car but kinda sad as it's not one I consider ecological or sustainable for the world at large. Idk Fisker, but I was a fan of Aptera which also failed for various reasons but seemed to me more of a sustainable car nearly every family could afford.
Instead, we're going for car that's electric not because of the environment, but because it's wicked fast and great 0-60 times and looks cool. Nevermind the strip mining needed for all those battery packs and such or that it's a traditional car and so not very aerodynamic compared to what we could achieve (and so not as efficient). Sad that our society sometimes seems to be ruled by the sensibilities of a 13 year old but I guess that's just how it is.
Well, if they are laying off 75% of their workers, I guess they don't consider them part of the "core assets."
Whatever happened to companies that loudly proclaimed, "The most important assets we have . . . are our employees!" . . . ?
. . . and actually meant what they said . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
article is not about the scissors company Fiskars
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
This is on the front page because Fisker is linked to Democrats, and the failure of this company makes them look bad.
And when Fisker first started talking about their cars and got all sorts of drooling interest here ... that's because it was Eeevil Republicans playing long ball and setting up slashdot users for a clever smackdown later when Fisker inevitably failed? Wow those guys are sinister geniuses!
Here's why Fisker is associated with Democrats: because a Democrat decided to hand them half a billion dollars borrowed from other places like China in a vain attempt to pander to the Greener Than Thou voting block. Yes, it was pure politics. You can't make Obama's political decision to give them other people's money (and the interest we'll be paying on that money for decades) go away.
But that has nothing to do with the fact that a theoretically promising and sexy-looking tech product company has badly fumbled something that an endless parade of people keep saying is the Super Sexy Green Future of driving around.
One of my customers invested a pile of money into becoming a Fisker dealer. They have been completely, royally screwed by the engineering, sales, and financial incompetence of that company - as well as bad luck over things like cars getting flooded in storage in storms, and more. Why is this "on the front page?" Because it's a classic tale of a tech venture gone sideways. And you doth protest way too much about the politics. Basically, you're using the opportunity to start a thread that bashes people you don't like. The hypocrisy is delicious.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You're right. It's better to continue spending trillions to pull oil out of the Middle East. That's much less expensive.
I don't respond to AC's.
After being saddled with a half-billion dollars in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy...
From the OED:
saddle
v.
1. Put a saddle on a horse
2. (Saddle someone with) give someone an unpleasant responsibility or task.
1. If you somehow meant this car company was reducing fossil fuel consumption by strapping saddles to horses and calling them cars, they should have been out of business a long time ago.
2. If you somehow meant that the DOE forced a half billion dollar loan guarantee on them, and they were unhappy about this... I think you misunderstand the function of the DOE, and possibly the function of a loan guarantee.... And possible the function of a half billion dollars. Are you, perchance, a Fisker executive? They seem to have this same difficulty in understanding the functions of these things.
DOE should take control of the company, oust its top executives and either turn it around or sell off its useful assets to other companies who will use them to achieve the goals of the loan and recoup the taxpayers' costs. Otherwise Fisker will probably sell its assets off for less than they are worth and the executives will get kickbacks or positions at those companies in exchange for doing so.
To change the energy infrastructure to something that'll be more sustainable, lots of things need to be done at the same time, and those things need to be done by the government, because it's too big and too important of a job for any one private company to handle.
I don't respond to AC's.
This was to be expected.
There are people on /. who wouldn't understand such a thing for example. There are people here who do not understand that a company must turn up profit and if it doesn't it has no reason to exist, it's employing land, capital and labour inefficiently.
There are also people here who think that having government dictate how an economy should run is the preferred way, not allowing the private ownership and operation of property (capitalism) and free market (equality before the law, rule of law that does not discriminate against people and thus create inequality of treatment and inefficiencies of economy) to do what it does best - savings, investment, production.
There are is the answer and that "borrowing" from yourself to "pay" your debts is actually a meaningful act.
So this is yet another failed example of government "investing". You can't invest somebody else's money if they are forced to give it to you under the threat of violence, so that money is not coming out of your pocket, you are forcing it out of other people's pockets to run your own technocrat goals, and mostly really those are corrupt goals.
Note that this was one of the ways that Al Gore's profited from his gov't ties.
You can't handle the truth.
This is on the front page because Fisker is linked to Democrats
The word "Democrat" appears nowhere in the linked article. Perhaps you're reading something else...?
I don't respond to AC's.
We've been through this before many times over the decades. Electric cars make no sense. Hydrogen is not a fuel. Space won't save us. When this will become clear, then the human species can mature a bit, and start the important projects for the next few centuries: to create a new social model to allow us to live on this planet because that's all we have.
You are making assumptions on the viability of paths based on current and past technology. Electric cars actually make a lot of sense, hydrogen is in fact a fuel, and though space may not save us from ourselves that does not mean that we will not have an increased presence there over the years due to advancing technological fronts. A half billion dollar experiment in an electric car company that failed is absolutely nothing compared to something truly idiotic like the invasion of Iraq.
The US gets less than 1 percent of its electricity from oil.
Yeah USA's been down this road before. Didn't work then. Won't work now. For a while everyone was "by 2000 there will be no oil anywhere" and 20 years later (90's) people were driving land garbage scows and there was so much oil prices plummeted. Eco went away.
The current wave of Ecothink is similar to the last. Solar still won't work, not with photovoltaics in their current state. Corn is a joke. It's for eatin' and makin' hooch, not becoming fuel. It's upside-down, you spend more energy making than what you get out of it. Adding it to gasoline makes the cars unhappy and doesn't do a damn thing to improve MPG. Wishful thinking can't beat physics. People still fall for Eco and embrace it with religious fervor.
As for electric cars I'm all for it, just please no rows and rows and rows of ballast.. I mean batteries.. weighing down my car and needlessly using dangerous, expensive, hard-to-get materials.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Yes but it goes a little further than that. Our current national energy policy doesn't include mass storage of the generated electricity. AFAIK, the only way to do this would be widespread use of dams and reservoirs with hydroelectric generators but that goes against current environmental/social policy. That said, there is another consequence to forced adoption of electric cars without localized long-term energy storage and that is the people will gradually be forced to live and travel only where there is a ready supply of electricity. But maybe that's really their long-term goal: a few massively overcrowded cities and no human presence elsewhere. After all, mother Gaia needs protection from the cancer that is humanity.
Did someone at DOE go to Fisker and force them to take on this debt, or did they ASK FOR IT?
"Becoming saddled with" implies it was involuntary. But Fisker asked for these loans. When they couldn't get them on their own (banks and venture capitalists apparently aren't as stupid as they wanted them to be), they asked all of us to guarantee the loans. Well, the banks and VCs were smart, and our representatives in the transaction weren't.
It is the citizens of the United States of America that are "being saddled with" this extra debt.
Having their battery supplier fold didn't help matters either.
fencepost
just a little off
Let's be real though - the government didn't just invest in Fisker. They also invested in Tesla, which is going strong, along with Ford and Nissan. Nissan delivered with the Leaf, while Ford's return on that investment is much less direct but involves a few different combustion engine technologies/improvements and manufacturing line improvements.
The truth is that this is the way investment works - some companies are successful, others are not. Whether the government should be investing at these different levels is what's really up for debate. It's hard to deny that the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program has generally been a success, whether you believe that the government should have been the ones to invest or not. This program was a $25 billion program, and they lost $200 million of it on a bad investment. Considering the risk profile was expected to be 30%, it would take Ford or Nissan to fail on their obligations under the loan in order for it to surpass that threshold.
You also need to understand that Fisker didn't get all of the money they were guaranteed. A loan guarantee means they'll definitely loan up to a limit, not that Fisker immediately received that amount. The real number they got is about $200 million, not $500 million. Losing $200 million on a total of $25 billion invested in relatively unproven (in the market) technologies isn't all that bad.
Look, someone lent Fisker money. It may not have been the US governement but so what. At the end of the day, Fisker took 200 million up in smoke, the lender got paid back by the US government, and the US government spent $200 million that it got from the taxpayers. Yeah, a loan guarantee is not the same as giving Fisker the money directly, but at the end it amounts to the US government (and taxpayers) being out $200 million while Fisker pissed the money away.
Here's why Fisker is associated with Democrats: because a Democrat decided to hand them half a billion dollars borrowed from other places like China in a vain attempt to pander to the Greener Than Thou voting block. Yes, it was pure politics. You can't make Obama's political decision to give them other people's money (and the interest we'll be paying on that money for decades) go away.
Except it seems we're expected to hyperventilate over that amount, while ignoring something like the half a trillion dollars borrowed from other places like China in a vain attempt to spread Democracy overseas. We can't even mention that, it's just unthinkable to still be criticizing George W. Bush for the countless dollars wasted on his wars.
He's out of office, so obviously we're supposed to forget about everything he did, and ignore how his party is still endorsing the same spendthrift ways without concern.
Or how you know, it was his party that got behind the idea of backing loans to private corporations rather than investing in actual government development programs.
But that has nothing to do with the fact that a theoretically promising and sexy-looking tech product company has badly fumbled something that an endless parade of people keep saying is the Super Sexy Green Future of driving around.
One of my customers invested a pile of money into becoming a Fisker dealer. They have been completely, royally screwed by the engineering, sales, and financial incompetence of that company - as well as bad luck over things like cars getting flooded in storage in storms, and more. Why is this "on the front page?" Because it's a classic tale of a tech venture gone sideways. And you doth protest way too much about the politics. Basically, you're using the opportunity to start a thread that bashes people you don't like. The hypocrisy is delicious.
Part of what makes it "uneconomical" is that the infrastructure isn't there to cut costs. Imagine that the gas engine didn't exist, and you'd see that it takes quite a bit to develop the technology into something marketable to the average person. Don't forget, the Model T, considered the first affordable car, didn't roll off the assembly line until 1908, more than 20 years after Benz created the first "modern" automobile in 1885. Even then, from 1886 to 1893, Benz sold only about 25 of them. By 1900, they only sold 572. My guess is that there were plenty of people who said it couldn't be done, and that Benz was destined to fail because this thing couldn't be sold to average individuals, during that time.
You are a retard, and this is the most retarded FP I've ever seen. That is all.
It's a leaked copy of the Fisker business plan, so it's entirely on topic.
Ezekiel 23:20
Corn is a joke. It's for eatin' and makin' hooch, not becoming fuel. It's upside-down, you spend more energy making than what you get out of it.
That's true of everything, or haven't you heard of the laws of thermodynamics? But if you're going to charge the solar energy that is being used to grow the corn to humans, it's your math that is a joke.
Much like the calculations purporting to prove that growing corn for ethanol was inefficient. Turns out they left out some numbers in their accounting, like how much corn went to foodstocks.
That said, there are other plants, and you can find there's support for growing them, and making ethanol from them.
Adding it to gasoline makes the cars unhappy and doesn't do a damn thing to improve MPG. Wishful thinking can't beat physics.
Too bad it seems like outright deceit can beat the truth, at least in your case, since you're arguing that the ethanol doesn't do something it was never meant to do as if that was an argument against it.
Here's a clue, the reason to add ethanol to gasoline is to improve the quality of the exhaust gases from burning it, not to improve fuel mileage. I know it may shock you, but the chemists and engineers who wrote the papers actually do have science on their side, not just empty rhetoric that completely misses the point of the action. Why next you'll be arguing that an air bag doesn't do a damn thing to improve MPG, or a seat belt, or tempered glass.
Well, great, so what? Can you offer an argument that actually addressed the point of ethanol being added to fuel?
Indeed. Furthermore, how many trillions has the US spent supporting a government in Afghanistan that is no less hated and corrupt than the Republic of South Vietnam was? A government that will last just as long without US support?
And yet, these cretins worry over things costing less than a thousandth the cost. Keep cutting discretionary spending and keep stealing from social security to cut taxes on the rich, US, and you'll be just like Russia in no time. Minus the natural resources. We Norwegians hoped Obama might get you back on track, but you guys apparently resent it, and it is ultimately your right to decline and deteriorate if you want.
FYI, unemployment for graduates with engineering degrees is less than 1% here, and immigration into Norway is easy for skilled workers. Send your useful people to Norway and let the rest finally have things as they please. You deserve better, and the idiots just plain deserve it.
Oil is a small part of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation#List_of_countries_with_source_of_electricity_2008">electricity generation.
None but we're getting closer thanks to Obama are awesome Nobel Peace Prize winning President... Spending has more than double since 2009
At least when a *consumer* *decides* to spend a dollar on a product from the middle east, they actually get value for their purchase.
Whether the government should be investing at these different levels is what's really up for debate.
I question whether the government should be "investing" in any company, least of all green tech boondoggles like Fisker and Solyndra. Meanwhile, millions of Americans who sorely needed that extra 2% in their paychecks before the payroll tax cut expired have now been hit with a higher tax bill. People were surprised when their payroll tax withholdings increased because they believed Obama when he said that he wouldn't raise their taxes. How's that change working for ya? Meanwhile Obama blows money on stupid shit like Solyndra and Fisker. I'd rather have that 2% back in my pocket Mr President thank you very much. If green technology is such a great investment then where are all the qualified professional investors? Why aren't they throwing in? Elon Musk is like a modern day Howard Hughes, a billionaire who puts money into tech that interests him regardless of whether it makes or mostly loses money, so he doesn't count. If qualified professional investors don't feel that green is a good investment then why the hell should the average taxpayer, who knows almost nothing about investing, be asked to "invest" in these companies. It's just another taxpayer rip-off and government waste of our hard earned money if you ask me.
If corn based ethanol wasn't a joke, it wouldn't need subsidies for production, and it wouldn't need mandated blends to prop up sales.
If that is the most retarded FP you've ever seen - then you're obviously new here. Hang around awhile. Or, just scroll back through the archives.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
It was way better than all that hosts file crap, though. Compared to that this post almost had a valid point.
people are just too cheap
It's true. Most people can't afford $100,000 worth of solar arrays and rechargeable cars that can only get them on a short errand. Damn cheapskates!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It's just another taxpayer rip-off
It's worse than that. Because it was done entirely to buy votes. It was done so that Obama could stand with his teleprompters on a factory floor of yet another (soon to fail) company and proclaim what a visionary he is in advance of an election. So glad I could help pay for that, for him.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yes, of course the first electric car was around before the Model T and there still isn't an "affordable" electric car. In 1900, there were 1575 electric cars registered in the entire U.S., compared with 936 internal combustion cars. So, in 1900, electric cars were more popular than internal combustion cars, yet today when there a millions of internal combustion cars registered in the U.S. the number of electric cars is somewhere in the vicinity of .01% of that number. Exactly how long is this technology going to take to mature?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Who is that supposed to be buying votes from, Fisker employees and investors? (Also, “teleprompters?” Fox News called from 2009, seems you’re infringing on their bullshit talking point)
And shit man, if you're worried about subsidies, why don't you ask the petroleum industry why they need so many tax breaks, why they need the support of military forces in the regions they operate, why they're sucking up to the government teat as much as big aggro.
Ok, do you have a phone number for the Petroleum Industry? They get the same tax breaks as anyone else. They do not get direct subsidies. Put down the pipe.
The biggest difference between a loan guarantee or a grant, and a tax break is that the former two have a lot more accountability. There are tax breaks that are a lot bigger that have gone to various companies -- and have the same (negative) effect on the deficit. The difference is that the tax breaks are announced, but what they cost the country (in terms of a decrease in income) never really gets accounted for -- other than estimates that may, or may not, be accurate..
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I am quite familiar with the whole Fisker saga since one of my relatives bought a Karma last year. I tried to talk him out of it. When I test drove the car the software was extremely buggy, not even alpha quality IMO. The entire drive the car kept going "bong bong bong" because it was stuck in some self parking mode that the dealership couldn't get it out of. The car was sexy looking IMO, but it had a lot of serious issues going for it too.
The car is big yet the interior is quite cramped with the huge battery occupying the entire center of the car. Acceleration was nice, up to around 30-40MPh. The software on the center touch screen looked cool, when you could see it, but was quite buggy and not easy to use, especially while driving. For such an eco-friendly car it also only got 20MPG on gasoline and got a combined EPA rating of only 50MPG. The car is quite heavy, over 5300LBS.
Fisker's problem is that they outsourced their engineering. The drive train was done by Quantum Technologies and the battery by A123 systems, both heavy investors in Fisker. Fisker promised to sell 15-20K Karmas which A123 bet the farm on.
Then there were the fires, for one of which the cause was never explained. While the battery wasn't the cause the perception was there. Next was the Consumer Reports debacle. The car completely died early in their testing and it was determined that the battery was defective. This resulted in a battery recall which was the final nail in A123's coffin leading to their bankruptcy. A123 was already in big trouble since Fisker sold far fewer cars than they had promised. In fact, even though Fisker hasn't made a single new car since July of last year you can still find plenty of unsold Karmas at most of the dealerships.
My relative loves his Karma, but the car has been in the shop way too many times in the last year, sometimes being towed in and some of the issues have been rather serious. Other issues are just unexplained.
Fisker was all about image and styling using outsourced technology. When some Chinese investors looked into the company they realized that they didn't have all that much in terms of technology, and in fact their technology was rather mediocre in many ways and needed some serious refining. There were issues between the engine and generator, plus they used two synchronous motors in order to get enough power to move the car and to help overcome torque ripple issues (from what I gather from their patents).
For a first car from a new car company the car was overly ambitious and was far more complicated than I think they realized. Because it was so late the car was rushed to market with a lot of serious issues and inadequate testing. The car underperformed in almost every way. The federal government cut off their loan before they could draw it down all the way.
Their next car, the Atlantic, was to be built in a shuttered Delaware factory but that car also suffered from a cramped interior.
Fisker also burned through a lot of cash without a lot to show for it. They never did anything with the factory they purchased other than stick it to Delaware.
A lot of people compare Fisker to Tesla which is an apt comparison. I am even more familiar with Tesla, having bought a model S myself. Unlike Fisker, Tesla developed their own technology for their Roadster. They developed the battery and drive train and perfected it, once they moved away from the problematic 2-speed transmission.
Tesla's battery solution was to use inexpensive off-the-shelf batteries and to perfect their battery management technology. Unlike Fisker, who uses an expensive custom battery pack Tesla's battery packs are stuffed with over 7000 18650 cells. The 18650 lithium cell is about as standard as it gets. Their drive train is much more compact than Fisker as well. They use a single induction motor that provides about as much power as the pair of motors Fisker uses but without requiring expensive rare-earth metals. Tesla's motor has no magnets in it.
While the Fisker Karma and
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Electric car technology is not competitive, period. Unless you artificially tax gasoline
Full stop. If you're going to discuss economic feasibility due to artificial taxes, you should first discuss how the artificially LOW state at which the gas tax currently resides acts as a detriment to such investment.
I used to like Fiskers stuff, but lately all I find is crap (IMO) from them. No love lost.
Hydrogen is the only fuel that powers the earth. Every bit of energy we get on each is powered fusion in the sun. Everything else we use is a storage medium. Oil is just a storage mechanism since it same living material powered by the sun. Wind caused by convection currents when the sun heats air. Hydro power is caused from water evaporated by the sun then condensed at a higher potential every. Nuclear power comes from heavy ions produced in super nova that were powered by stars.
Hydrogen is a fuel source thanks to fusion.
By that logic, we should never invest in R&D or anything remotely risky as long as there are needy people.
Why bother with cancer or diabetes research when we have so many who don't have medical coverage?
All those hundreds of billions should have been spent on more prescriptions and checkups, right?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
In late March, Fisker put its entire U.S. workforce on furlough...Fisker asked 53 senior managers and executives to stay on board,
Layoff all the workers, keep the execs. That's what happens when the problem is dictating the solution.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The only mention of tax breaks for energy from that article is this.
"Moreover, many of the individual exceptions that allow corporations to shield profits from taxation actually enjoy broad popularity, like tax breaks to support domestic manufacturing, low-income housing and green energy."
Pretty much all economic failures between 2008 and 2016 are "linked to the Democrats", because they are currently in power. Are you suggesting we just suspend reporting altogether until a Republican president gets elected again?
Excellent, excellent. We all agree taxes are a disincentive to investment. And unequal tax rates on goods that are substitutes will change the amounts of each good purchased. So, to make the market work most effectively, let's just set the tax rates equally on all industries, stop the industry subsidies, and people will get to select whether properly priced electric or gas-fueled cars better meet their needs.
And that 2% would make such a big difference in your life! Wow!
Only an ignorant young person, still in college with mommy and daddy paying the bills, or a rich jerk would say something like that. Plenty of people in America live paycheck to paycheck, just barely getting by. So yes, 2% is a big difference to most of us. Although I admit that it's not as burdensome for me personally as perhaps it is for others, that doesn't make it alright. Waste is waste and it ought to be called out. Now, some of you might say, "well yes but we spend even more on X" and you would be right, but two wrongs don't make a right. The long term spending in this country must be brought under control and that will never happen as long as boondoggles like these green "investments" continue. They're symbols of the waste that infects our system from top to bottom and so ending them is also symbolic of our commitment to the long term goal of cutting wasteful spending and preserving the rights of our children and grandchildren to be free of the crushing debts incurred by their parents and grandparents.
Qualified professional investors are limited in their ability to tackle big problems because they don't have enough money, they don't have enough time, or there is no way to hoard the results of a particular investment. Governments have lots of money, lots of time, and they don't care as much about hoarding the resulting benefit because their entire goal is to benefit society. Private investment gets trapped into local minimums and incrementalism.
I'll give you a few examples:
1. The railroad system (Pacific Railroad Act)
2. Morrill land-grant act for universities (Purdue, MIT, Cornell, etc.)
3. GI Bill of rights
4. Interstate highway system
5. The internet
6. NASA
etc., etc.
There are more examples here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-lazonick/nine-government-investmen_b_954185.html
Soon to be added to this list, 'Electric cars'.
"Elon Musk... doesn't count". So the question is.... who does?
When Warren Buffet announces a major green technology investment and honestly promotes it to the shareholders in public at the annual Berkshire meeting, I will take another look. Until then I won't be holding my breath or investing my own money in green tech.
Computers still haven't supplanted books and computers have been around for a while--should we give up on those?
Are you suggesting that there should be a time limit on the maturation of a technology? beyond which we just give up? Doesn't that sound kinda stupid to you?
I will admit that the MidAmerican Energy solar and wind projects are interesting, but I would like to see at least a few years of profitable operations from these generating projects to confirm their worth. I also own utility stock, but the wind and solar portfolio remains small relative to the coal and nuclear capacity at most of these companies. It should also be noted that MidAmerican energy is a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway representing about 0.4 percent of total assets.
Why did you feel the need to re-post this as AC?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
The long term spending in this country must be brought under control and that will never happen as long as boondoggles like these green "investments" continue. They're symbols of the waste that infects our system from top to bottom and so ending them is also symbolic of our commitment to the long term goal of cutting wasteful spending and preserving the rights of our children and grandchildren to be free of the crushing debts incurred by their parents and grandparents.
If you want to control long term spending, there are tons of better programs to examine. Wall street bailouts. Oil company subsidies. Those together are about 1000 times as much money as was lost in Fisker. Toss in the Medicare pharma giveaway and you almost get another order of magnitude. That doesn't get to a bullshit war fought for fraudulent reasons.
On someone ignorant like yourself wouldn't see that infrastructure spending, and yes that includes research, is the future. It encourages education, it creates jobs. Waiting for private industry to solve all our problems means we wouldn't have a space program, nuclear tech, GPS satellites, or highways. Private industry seeks to maximize profit, not benefit society. Private industry is better off in wars fought elsewhere - they sell bullets, health services, and reconstruction industries. As opposed to just selling cheap goods to a content population.
"More often"??
Based on Fisker and Solyndra??
The financial crises in my working life, dating back about 35 yrs, were largely due to a lack of government oversight, and were far more damaging than money lost in loans for development.
Since companies and corporations actively try to get government money or favorable policies and since this is supported to some extent by members of both the Dems and the GOP, this won't be solved without changing the constitution.
And your idea for a prize won't work for most serious research as the amount of money needed for development and testing is staggering.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
WTF? Where did you get that 2% amount? It's closer to 0.1%.
Where's the backlash against the congressional republicans who voted for the 2% increase, going so far as having Grover Norquist declare that the bill was "technically" tax cuts?
I am not a sig.
This is on the front page because Fisker is linked to Democrats, and the failure of this company makes them look bad.
Pretty much all economic failures between 2008 and 2016 are "linked to the Democrats", because they are currently in power. Are you suggesting we just suspend reporting altogether until a Republican president gets elected again?
Not at all. My point is that slashdot has taken a very conservative turn in the past 5-10 or so years.
That, and when the republicans had all the power (it could be argued that hasn't ended), we blamed all the economic problems on the democrats. While the GOP claims to be about "personal responsibility" they do a great job of avoiding ever taking responsibility.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Indeed, and it works even better if you add some carbon to it. In fact, then you don't even have to bother with that whole "electricity" nonsense; you can simply burn it instead!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Slashdot is not "conservative". It has remained fairly laissez-faire economically and socially liberal, a position that is represented poorly by both parties. You seem to be confusing opposition to the Democrats with support for the Republicans or conservatism.
Both Republicans and Democrats are robbing tax payers blind in order to pay off constituencies that vote for them or support them in other ways, and both are trying to extend federal power further and further. And this mutual demonization and the social hotbutton issues are just a political charade to distract you from that reality.
Stop identifying with one party or the other and stop falling for the demonization. Become an independent. Support candidates who work against this b.s. in either party, and there are such candidates in both parties.
Corn-based ethanol has subsidies not because ethanol fuel isn't viable without them, but rather because the corn lobby demands them. The lobbyists couldn't care less how the corn gets used; they just realize that making fuel from it increases demand (and appeals to hippie-types better than high-fructose corn syrup).
We'd be better off switching the entire biofuel crop to switchgrass-based ethanol (or better yet, soy-based biodiesel), but then big agribusiness would have to retool.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Throw out Citizens United and Corporate Personhood for starters. Put real limits on donations from all sources incl unions, companies and really rich fucks.
The creation of an arms-length regulated agency for elections may be required - probably more vital to the health of the nation than the USPS.
The many laws are definitely part of the problem but tying everything back to constitutional principles means that the fix, ultimately requires an amendment.
Enact some measures to prevent the revolving door between the regulators and the regulated which seems to be particularly troublesome with Wall Street, Big Oil and Big Pharma.
Government oversight in the form of the IRS seems to work quite well for some problems. Just ask Scarface Al ( and many others ).
So there may be corrupt departments but that's a fixable problem if you get the foxes out of the henhouse and put some big cocks in charge.
Congressional reform may also be required but that's not something to be undertaken lightly.
When it comes to controlling financial crises and punishing those responsible, government has become much too weak. The Savings and Loan debacle saw lots of criminal convictions as did the DotCom / Enron / WorldCom fiascos.
But the subprime mortgage disaster?
As far as I can tell, it was all Bernie Madoff's fault.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Doesn't Home Depot deliver?
Anyways, in other countries the "last mile" problem is solved by things like tuk-tuks, auto-rikshaws and the like (small vehicles designed to hold 6 or so people).
Most busybody city governments don't like that, though.
In NYC, there are informal (illegal) minivans that pick up passengers for a few dollars and drop them off where they want to go.
If cities allowed that kind of thing, the problem would be solved.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Ford has an all electric version of the Focus and also has 2 extended ranges hybrid (C-Max Energi and Fusion Energi), and as far as I remember they are all under 40k too.
Who is that supposed to be buying votes from, Fisker employees and investors?
No, it's using taxpayers to pay the interest on money borrowed from China in order to make a very big press-friendly affair of showing how he's all about imaginary green wonder cars made by wonder kids from California, imported from Sweden - the land run with a government after which his core constituency would love to model at least California, and ideally the entire US. It's a big pandering display meant to solidify support from a particular block of voters. Those are the votes he's throwing away tax money to secure.
(Also, “teleprompters?” Fox News called from 2009, seems you’re infringing on their bullshit talking point)
Nah, I just get tired of him doing an awful job of pretending he's speaking extemporaneously from a factory floor or a kindergarten classroom when he's just standing there reading from the crutches powered by his speech writers. Fox talking points? Fox didn't invent his need to use them when standing in front of a room full of kids or while he's standing with a bunch of factory workers arranged as props so that he can appear to be engaged in the way they're blowing through tax money before going bankrupt. If you don't like people besmirching his Smartest Guy In The World image, write to his handlers and ask them to encourage him to give a few talks without the teleprompter equipment and the crew that manages them for him.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Baby steps.
Overall, we'd be better off getting rid of corn subsidies, period: We (in the US) are quite far from starving, and our farmers generally aren't broke.
After the undeniable fallout from that (which will take a few years to settle), then we can start talking about switchgrass, biodiesel, and/or reducing tariffs on importer sugar cane and derivatives.
When I was a kid, there was a downtown bake shop a half dozen blocks from my house. It had a rear entrance that was open to the public, and one got to walk through the shop area of the bakery as one made their way to the counter and storefront. It was awesome.
One morning, I wandered through there (more as a curious kid than as a paying customer) and asked the guy running the mixer why there were huge sacks of cane sugar on pallets, when we had our very own local refinery that processed beets into sugar less than two miles away.
His response: Cane sugar worked better and tasted better, even if it cost a bit more.
Nowadays, if the place was still around (it has burned twice and did not recover the second time), I'd half-expect to see tubs of HFCS instead.
This was perhaps 25 years ago, a time when a kid could wander into a bake shop and be inquisitive and score a free donut or two just for being friendly, before either Pepsi or Coke listed HFCS on their ingredient list at all.
And the point of this long-winded, get-off-my-lawn anecdote? Cane sugar, AFAICT, rocks. Beet sugar -might- rock. Corn syrup? Fuck corn syrup. And fuck corn-based ethanol.
Corn is useful enough just being corn: It is yummy. And without subsidies, it might even still be primarily a food crop instead of being mostly a chemical base-stock.
Kid-proof tablet..
Now I may be just a stupid furriner, but isn't it Congress that creates the budget and not the executive branch?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
One of my customers invested a pile of money into becoming a Fisker dealer. They have been completely, royally screwed by the engineering, sales, and financial incompetence of that company - as well as[...]
...getting involved with a product they didn't understand. You don't open a restaurant because you like food and you don't sell electric cars because you think they're cool. EV companies have been coming and going for years.
Why is this "on the front page?" Because it's a classic tale of a tech venture gone sideways.
This car weighs more than a lot of pickup trucks, and has shit interior room, and a massive price tag. Was it designed to be successful, or just to pick up a couple hundred bucks from our pocketbooks?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Go watch the Republican debates and see which of their ideas "resonate". When you have a large collection of idiots, expect the stupid ideas to carry the most weight.
Your free market argument, in this case, is bullshit because those shitty mortgages were packaged up as safe financial instruments and sold as such.
That was fraud on a massive scale - and that's a crime.
And those thieving fuckers didn't "simply follow gov't regulations" - they WROTE THEM.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I think it would be easier (politically) to swap the subsidy to a different crop than it would be to eliminate it entirely, especially if said crop could also be "Round-Up Ready." (Monsanto is evil and needs to be destroyed and any subsidy is not ideal, but we're talking about baby steps here...)
You'll get no argument from me! Although I can't be bothered to pay extra for "mexican Coca-Cola," I'll take "Throwback" Pepsi products over "regular" any day of the week.
You say that as if you think all corn grown is "sweet corn," but the vast majority is an entirely different variety that only livestock might think is tasty.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, it's using taxpayers to pay the interest on money borrowed from China in order to make a very big press-friendly affair of showing how he's all about imaginary green wonder cars made by wonder kids from California, imported from Sweden - the land run with a government after which his core constituency would love to model at least California, and ideally the entire US.
My puny brain lost track of this sentence somewhere around China. Also, I'm tired of *all* politicians speaking from kindergarten classes or large factory floors. Why can't he just hop in a race car or fly around in an attack helicopter like Putin does?
+1 Disagree
I'm pretty sure that the corn chips in my pantry are not made with sweet corn.
Indeed, I'm pretty sure that I seldom eat sweet corn, except whole.
So I'm pretty sure that I find other kinds of corn to be yummy.
Kid-proof tablet..
If these were worthy investments, the people would have made them on their own, less the overhead and waste inherent with government playing middle-man.
I generally consider myself a libertarian (though I spose I must not be a *true* libertarian). I read and enjoyed Atlas Shrugged, but I can't grasp how isolated from society somebody needs to be to take a line like that as gospel, or the follow-on argument that *anything* done by the government is theft from its people. If you're taking about consumer products like cars, sure why not, but there many great projects that have been undertaken that are simply too big for a private entity to build. Not only that, but I wouldn't *want* a sole private entity to be that large and powerful.
Have you been conned by the government taking your money to build out highways and infrastructure to facilitate trade? What about police forces, would you prefer to hire your own bodyguards for whenever you go out on the street? Perhaps we'd be better with several privately funded and instituted justice systems and codes of law? Can you understand where the US would be right now if we didn't decide to pool our resources and invest in these things? The simple fact is that some tasks are better suited to being public. People form governments for a reason.
+1 Disagree